Children have fun while learning and working as a team
Published in the May 13-26, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Photo by Marty Cheek
Dance instructor Andrey Shevchuk rehearses with cast members for the ballet “La Fille Mal Gardée.”
About a dozen girls in ballet rehearsal attire stepped lively in pace with the music across the wood floor at the Morgan Hill Grange hall. They comically chased dance instructor Andrey Shevchuk who carried a red umbrella for which he expressed a comical infatuation. They surrounded him in a tight circle and he threw his hands in the air in surprise.
On a Monday afternoon, the South Valley Dance Arts company prepared at the Grange for its upcoming show “La Fille Mal Gardée.” The family comedy ballet tells a mischievous love story about a young woman who goes against the matrimonial wishes of her mother. The ballet, which originally premiered in France in 1789, will be performed May 22 and 23 at the Sobrato High School Theater.
Rachael Gallagher, 14, plays the leading role of “Lise,” who is the “Wayward Daughter” of the ballet’s English-translated title. She started training with the company when she was 3 and loves getting on stage and performing.
“Lise is this young teenage girl and her mom has set up this marriage between this rich guy’s son and she doesn’t want to marry him,” Gallagher said, explaining the comic plot. “The son, he’s not the brightest and he’s actually in love with his umbrella. Lise falls in love with the peasant boy named Colas who her mom doesn’t want her to marry and so they hide Lise from her mom. But they are discovered by the mom and then the mom accepts it and the rich guy and his son are sad and walk out and Colas and Lise marry at the end.”
Sidney Murphy, 13, plays in the ballet’s quartet. She started with South Valley Arts Dance when she was little, took a break, and then came back when she was 11. The discipline of the training in ballet has helped her with her home-school education, she said.
Photo by Marty Cheek
Andrey Shevchuk works with Audric Smith, 8, at the South Valley Dance Art’s downtown studio.
“The things you think about such as combinations when you’re dancing helps in schools in solving problems,” she said.
Part of a duet in the show, Hannah Anderson, 14, started training in ballet when she was 8 and enjoys being part of the camaraderie in a dance show, even though learning to dance ballet can be physically and mentally demanding.
“I started because a friend told me about it,” she said. “I loved it and I stuck with it.”
SVDA started in 1977 as the Morgan Hill Ballet Company by Paula Valentine. After her retirement, the company went into a hiatus, but was revised in recent years as the newly-named South Valley Dance Arts. The not-for-profit dance arts studio and company offers the region’s young people a holistic and modest approach to learning to dance ballet and other artistic forms. It is dedicated to cultivating the artistic potential of the South Valley community by providing quality educational and training programs, public performances, and collaboration with other arts organizations.
Juliet Smith, a teacher and director at SVDA, began her ballet experience in 1977 when the company was started. She fell in love with the study of ballet and her talent took her to London in the early 1990s where she studied at the Royal Academy and performed with the Royal Ballet in Covent Gardens. Ballet is very unique because it focuses on discipline in a similar way to karate, one reason many children train at SVDA, she said.
“There are very few arts left that require discipline,” she said. “We stress that in a gentle and fun and artistic way. There are few things children study anymore where they really have to get past the hard work and discipline and get to that place where they’re more than an apprentice but an expert. It’s the same with classical music. There are a lot of kids who get into ballet or playing violin who get to a point where they say, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ They have to get past that place before they can actually see the rewards.”
This discipline transfers into the students’ school work and into their daily life because they realize that if they work hard and get past the parts that are not fun, the discipline lets them eventually become an expert and have fun performing in shows, she said.
“It’s the focus on the artistic side that I love about it and also that the dancers here form strong friendships because it really seems to attract such a loving and kind group,” she said.
The upcoming ballet showcases SVDA’s philosophy of forming a team of dancers who have fun working together to create dance art. Their parents have also been involved in developing the show.
“It’s a very collaborative show,” said Nichole Murphy, the producer “We worked with the girls to team together in this show.”
One of the growing programs offered at SVDA is a Ukrainian folk dance class for boys. A native of the Ukraine, the 32-year-old Shevchuk instructs the male dancers who range in age from 6 to 12. The class started last year with two boys and has now grown to about 10 students. Ukrainian folk dance can be energetic and fast-paced. Much of it was developed to mentally and physically train Cossack soldiers in the Ukrainian army with martial exercises, he said.
“It builds your body, your flexibility. I like to do it because it develops the boys’ personalities and it’s team work,” he said “To take boys into ballet is harder because it’s more ‘sissy.’ But when you teach Ukrainian folk, it’s like a dance of soldiers. It’s kind of like karate or judo, but they do it in a dance.”
This form of ethnic dance helped him prepare for his slapstick role of “Alain,” the dimwitted suitor in “La Fille Mal Gardée.”
“Because I’m from the Ukraine, I danced for 11 or 12 years in Ukrainian folk dance,” he said. “It’s more playful where you get to show your personality, and maybe that’s why I like to do the funny parts. It’s nice to make people laugh and entertain people.”
